David T. Prosser, Jr.

David T. Prosser, Jr. is a Justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Prosser was appointed to the Supreme Court by Governor Tommy G. Thompson in 1998. He was elected to a 10-year term in 2001.

Biography
Justice Prosser was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin. He received his bachelor's degree from DePauw University in 1965 and his law degree from the University of Wsiconsin Law School in 1968.

Prior to joining the court, Justice Prosser served on the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission where he conducted hearings and issued decisions on disputes related to taxation in Wisconsin.

Following an 18-year career in the Wisconsin Legislature, Prosser was appointed to the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission. During his time in the Legislature, he served six years as Assembly minority leader and two years as Assembly speaker.

Before being elected to the state Assembly, Justice Prosser served as Outagamie County District Attorney.

He also worked in Washington, D.C., in the Nixon Administration for Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindeinst in the Office of Criminal Justice for the DAG. He wrote testimony for Kleindeinst that was praised by Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist, who was subsequently appointed to the Supreme Court by President Nixon. Kleindeinst eventually became Attorney General and then worked on Nixon's reelection campaign; he resigned shortly after the director of the FBI resigned as charges were leveled about interference in the Watergate investigation. Kleindeinst was later convicted for perjury for his testimony during his nomination hearing, regarding the decision to settle the ITT antitrust case, after which the company gave over a half million dollars to the effort to re-elect the president.

Prosser has not publicly detailed his work at the Justice Department with Kleindeinst and former Attorney General John Mitchell, who was also convicted, or John Dean, who resigned as White House Counsel and had previously worked in the Office of Criminal Justice. It is not clear what projects Prosser worked or speeches and testimony he wrote for the top leadership of the Nixon Justice Department during alms the entire first term of that administration. During that period, Rehnquist and other leaders were examining how to use criminal law and martial law to disrupt American protests against military operations in SouthEast Asia; the Justice Department was considering charges against Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times for the publication of the Pentagon Papers; the Department was defending the Nixon Administration in its assertion of a national security exception to the Fourth Amendments criminal wiretap provisions; and the administration was considering how to deal with violence surrounding school integration. It is not clear what, if any role, Prosser played in any discussion of these matters in his work in the senior management offices of the Nixon Justice Department. It is also not clear when he left the Department. It appears his tenure in the leadership offices extended past the Saturday Night Massacre in which Robert Bork fired the independent prosecutor investigating Watergate for requesting the tapes from the Nixon White House, and several political appointees resigned rather than fire the investigator.

Sometime in 1973, Prosser became an advisor to U.S. Rep. Harold Froehlich (R-Wisconsin), a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate impeachment inquiry. Froelich voted for two of the three impeachment counts against Nixon (related to the Watergate break-in and spying on opponents) but not for the count related to Nixon's refusal to comply with a subpoena to the White House, which had claimed unlimited executive power to refuse to cooperate. It is not clear what Prosser's views were of the impeachment counts against the President he formerly served for.

Prosser's current term expires July 31, 2011.

Justice Prosser Calls WI Supreme Court Chief Justice "a total bitch"
While arguing over the question of whether another justice should be recused from hearing a particular criminal case, Justice Prosser exploded behind closed doors and called Wisconsin Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson a "total bitch" and threatened to “destroy” her. The in-fighting came about in February 2011 according to interviews and e-mails between justices. Emails show that rivalry and discord among justices on the state's Supreme Court, problems that justices on both sides described the court as dysfunctional. Prosser suggested bringing in a third party for help; other other justices suggested that a third party would not be able to address what they described as Prosser's "tantrums.". Prosser told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the problems on the court were the fault of the Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, whom he said goaded her into calling her that perforative term and the threats.

Political ad regarding 1970s priest abuse case
In March 2011, the Greater Wisconsin Committee started running a 30-second television ad recalling a case of sexual abuse by a priest against Wisconsin children in the 1970s. The ad accused Justice Prosser of failing to prosecute Father John Patrick Feeney in the late 1970s for sexually abusing brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield and of trying to prevent a scandal for the Catholic Church and the priest, who was related to a famous singer on the Lawrence Welk Show. In 2004, Feeney was convicted for assaulting the Merryfields. The ad criticizes Justice Prosser's decision not to pursue charges against Feeney when Prosser was a county District Attorney. Troy Merryfield, has previously complained about Prosser's failure to act but called the ad "offensive, inaccurate and out of context" and asked the group to remove the ad from the airwaves.

Contact
Justice David T. Prosser Office of Justices, Wisconsin Supreme Court 16 East State Capitol P.O. Box 1688 Madison, WI 53701-1688 (608) 266-1882